


Of Course I Forgive You

by allonsys_girl



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blow Jobs, Episode: s03e01 The Empty Hearse, First Time, Frottage, Infidelity, Love Confessions, M/M, Wall Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-29
Updated: 2014-11-29
Packaged: 2018-02-27 11:03:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2690498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allonsys_girl/pseuds/allonsys_girl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What if things had gone differently on that train car?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Course I Forgive You

They're minutes from death. This is it. For the first time John can remember, Sherlock's not going to get them out of some dreadful situation. He can't let this happen again. He's got to  _tell_  him. 

 “You were the best and wisest man that I've ever known. Of  _course_  I forgive you.” 

“What? You do?” Sherlock sounds completely flabbergasted. His red rimmed eyes filled with unspilt tears, lower lip trembling violently. 

“Of course I do.  _Jesus_ , Sherlock.” John’s words come out in a gasping sort of sob, the kind that escapes all the louder and more desperate the more it’s held in. “Do you really think, after all this, after everything you’ve done - do you really bloody think that there’s anything you could do that I wouldn’t forgive you for?”

“Well. Yes. I mean, we  _are_  about to die because of me.”

“I died the first time you did. How could this be any worse?” John says, his harsh whisper so quiet he’s not even sure Sherlock hears it, until the train car goes eerily silent, broken only by the sound of his own ragged breaths. He’s looking at the floor, at his own shoes, thinking how they’re going to be melted in a matter of minutes - blobs of smoking rubber and curled blackened leather. He wonders briefly whether he’ll actually be blown right out of them.

“You - what?” Sherlock’s voice is barely more than breath, uneven and strained.

John looks up, looks directly into Sherlock’s widened disbelieving eyes, and the depth of  emotion between them hits him as physically hard as a punch to the sternum. He actually stumbles backwards two steps, overwhelmed by the hideousness of this moment, the unfairness of it. A rebellious kind of fury wells up hot in his throat. John’s whole life has been so goddamned unfair, and the moment of his death is no different. 

John Watson. Even his fucking  _name_  is sturdy, reliable, safe. 

Always trying to do the Right Thing. A wasted adolescence taking care of alcoholic parents, forcing himself to continually forgive the transgressions of a difficult sibling with the same problem. He’s fought for his country, taken a bullet for the privilege. He’s saved lives - god knows how many - as a soldier, as a doctor, as the right hand of the world’s only consulting detective. He tries not to give himself credit for any of it, but he knows deep down that other people aren’t this self sacrificing, that for him it’s almost an addiction to forget himself and put other people first.  

Years of war and injury and death prepared him for a lot of variables in life, but nothing could have prepared him for the maelstrom that was Sherlock. Sherlock came into his life at a time when John didn't even know who he was, when he was so lost and alone he couldn’t see a way forward. Sherlock had wiped away that lost, miserable person like tsunami waves wiping the landscape clean. The nightmares had stopped, the depression abated. He’d had a purpose again, and that purpose was Sherlock. 

John had always tried to do the right thing by Sherlock, even when it was tearing him apart inside. He’s played the role of the assistant, taken Sherlock’s searing criticism with a smile and an eye roll. He’s played the sidekick, even when it interfered with his own life, when it kept him from getting a job, or sleeping properly. He’s played the best friend to the hilt, resisting his own impulses nearly constantly, gritting his teeth and telling himself that Sherlock just didn’t feel things that way and it wouldn’t be fair of him to press the issue.  

Sherlock had said he wasn’t interested in anyone like that, said it that first night, when John was so obviously testing the waters. So John had backed off. Allowed Sherlock to sabotage any chance he had at a relationship with anyone else, while he knew damn well he would never be allowed to love Sherlock the way he wanted to. By the time they’d known each other less than two years, John had realised he could never be parted from Sherlock. 

So he’d  _managed_. He’d stopped trying to date, because it had simply become farcical. There had been no room in his life for anyone but Sherlock, no room in his heart. He could still remember the peace that had settled over him that first morning after he’d decided, decided this would be enough. He had looked at Sherlock over the steaming mugs of coffee between them, knowing without a doubt that he could spend his life doing this every day and be happy. He could actually feel the love in his own eyes, and Sherlock had glanced up, looking confused. 

 _What, John?_  
_Oh, nothing. Just nice to have a quiet breakfast at home._  
_Oh. Yes. It is._  

Sherlock had never commented on the sudden lack of girlfriends, never once. He must have realised John wasn’t dating anymore, that every single evening they weren’t off chasing criminals and filling out paperwork at Scotland Yard was now spent in their pyjamas, often sharing a blanket on the sofa, Sherlock getting up occasionally to make a fresh pot of tea. He must have noticed John rarely spend nights at the pub with Mike, begged off when Greg invited him for poker nights. He must have noticed how John’s friendly devotion had transformed into a partnership unbreakable by anything short of death. But he never said a thing. 

While it was excruciating some nights to watch the exquisite movements of Sherlock’s back muscles through his shirt as he played violin, and know that he would never touch them, never feel them sweaty under his mouth while Sherlock gasped in pleasure, he would bite down his need and remind himself that this was enough. Because it  _had_  to be.

John had always thought of them as a sort of impossible solar system in which each of them was simultaneously a sun and a planet endlessly and helplessly orbiting each other. 

"You heard me." John says now, raw and undone. He's aware of every molecule of air moving through his lungs. He can feel his heartbeat pulsing in his temple. He's never been so hyper aware of just being alive. Not even in the army, where the cacophony of war drowned out any thought except  _please god, let me live._

Here, in this suspended moment, it's silence. They’re in their tomb. He's going to die. Sherlock's going to die. Together. At least they’ll have that.

_But if you were dying, if you'd been murdered...in your very last few seconds, what would you say?_

“John, listen to me - I am so so very sorry - “

He’s just going to keep talking. He’s just going to apologise until they’re blown to bits, because that’s what Sherlock does. He never bloody shuts up long enough to actually listen to anyone else. He’s going to talk John to death, literally. 

“Sherlock, shut up.”

It comes out harsher than he intended, and Sherlock’s mouth claps shut abruptly, a wounded look in his beautiful eyes. God, he is so beautiful. The number of nights John has lain awake thinking about those eyes, that little freckle in the right iris, the shape of Sherlock’s mouth, how one smooth cheekbone would feel sliding against his face, is innumerable. It’s been every night since the first one. 

When Sherlock was alive, it was most often with lust, his hot breath coming in short gasps over his own chest as he ground his hips into the bed and tried not to call out Sherlock’s name. The shame would creep over him as he tiptoed down the steps to clean up, far too aware of Sherlock’s presence in the sitting room. He would see Sherlock’s silhouette against the dim lamplight as he left the loo, all pouted lips and aquiline nose, and fall asleep thinking of that beautiful face nuzzling between his shoulder blades. 

After Sherlock died, his face blurred in John’s memory. It would often be mixed up with the memory of that last moment, Sherlock’s face bloody and smashed on the pavement. His blank staring eyes. John would dream of kissing him, and Sherlock would pull back with ripped open lips, his cheek muscles exposed, a grinning skull. John would wake up gasping for air, his lungs on fire.

Right. Enough talking, enough haunted pining, thinking about the past. They’re dead anyway, there’s no reason for regrets anymore. Just enough time to -

“Stand up.”

Sherlock complies quickly, scrambling up off his knees and staring at John with wide eyes. The space between them is nothing, just a few feet, and John closes the gap quickly.

There’s no time for explanations, no time to talk about this, to reconsider. John tears off his gloves and throws them on the floor, grabs Sherlock by the lapels as gently as he can manage, lining their bodies up, his knee sliding against the inside of Sherlock’s. Their hips bump, and even through layers of fabric, even when they’re seconds from not even existing anymore, it sends a shiver down John’s spine that he can’t cover up.  Sherlock’s looking down at him steadily, not pulling away. John tilts his chin, eyes still locked with Sherlock’s. Sherlock blinks at him, that endearing ridiculous habit that means he has absolutely no idea what’s happening or how to handle it, and John feels his eyes filling.

This is the closest they’ll ever be, and it will be over before they’ve even had a moment to understand it. All those wasted years have never felt more oppressively idiotic. All those nights wondering what would happen if he just told him, rolling over in his cold bed holding a pillow to his chest and trying to pretend it was Sherlock. The eye contact that went on far longer than could be easily explained, the accidental touches that sent electricity singing through his nerve endings, the body language that was always  _almost_ , but not  _quite_  - it was all there for John to act upon, and he never could allow himself to experience the vulnerability, to hazard the danger of what if. 

So many nights they'd spent together in front of the crackling fire, Sherlock’s cold toes dug under his thigh on the sofa, neither of them saying anything about it, acting as if it were just incidental to sharing a small space. John could have just reached down and touched him, made clear what they were to each other. He could have pulled Sherlock’s feet onto his lap, cradled them against his stomach, rubbed a thumb along those perfectly high arches - the intimacy of that simple act would have told Sherlock everything about how John felt about him.

He should never have held back, he should have just - 

“John?” Sherlock whispers, confused and unsure. 

“You asked me once to imagine what I would say if I was about to die, and I told you I didn’t have to. I’d already said it.”

“Please god let me live.”

“Yeah. Seems a lifetime ago, doesn’t it?”

Sherlock blinks, long black lashes snarling together. His eyes are bright translucent green in the fluorescent light, shards of sea glass. “I remember every single thing you’ve ever said.” 

“I know. I remember everything you’ve ever said, too. Even though I’m not a genius.” John moves one hand up Sherlock’s coat, the familiar roughness of the wool catching on the dry winter skin of his fingertips. He allows the pad of his thumb to rest against the bare skin just above the collar of Sherlock’s shirt. 

Sherlock’s eyes fall shut and he swallows hard, his esophagus moving under John’s fingers. “You are. Just in a different way.”

“I thought I was an idiot." John inches closer, their bellies aligned, Sherlock’s expanding into John’s, contracting as John breathes against him, moving together like a circuit. Out of Sherlock, into John. Out of John, into Sherlock.  

"You're the smartest person I've ever known. Much more so than I am. You’re remarkable, John." Sherlock says shakingly. He’s trembling so hard, John can see it.

John laughs tightly. They’re running out of time. 

“And you’re just as amazing as you were the first day we met. Shit. This is bloody awful, dying. I can’t even  _think_.”

“You seem to be doing alright.” 

“Sherlock.” John shuts his eyes, tries to gather his scattered thoughts.  

“What would you say now, John? If you were dying.” Sherlock’s voice breaks on John’s name.

John cups his hand around Sherlock’s angular jaw, rubs his thumb against his chin. Sherlock’s mouth drops open into a little  _O_  and he trembles. John drops one hand to his waist to steady him, to steady them both. This is the love of his life in his arms for the first and last time, and the enormity of that is more than he can comprehend. Sherlock slides a shaking hand over John’s. His fingertips trace delicately over the bones in John’s wrist, waiting. 

"I would say - I  _am_  saying - " John stretches up until their noses are touching. They’re both breathing like they’ve been running, through their mouths, Sherlock’s breath ghosting humid over John’s lips. He smells like sugared coffee and toast.

“John.” His voice sounds agonised, and John suddenly worries - because he can’t help it, because worrying about Sherlock is as natural as eating or sleeping - even here, right at the end.  

“I’m sorry if this is - I just  _have_  to. You died once without knowing, and I can’t - not again. Forgive me.” John’s words tumble directly into Sherlock’s mouth, their lips resting against each other in not-yet-a-kiss. 

Sherlock sighs and sinks forward in clear acquiescence, as his other hand comes up to rest in the curve of John’s spine. Their mouths meet in the softest brush of lips possible. John stops moving, lingering here, in this unbelievable moment with his mouth against Sherlock’s mouth, praying that his last seconds on earth are this - that Sherlock doesn’t pull away, try to talk about it. If he has to die, he wants to die feeling like Sherlock loves him.

There’s a sudden fluttering of eyelashes against John’s, and he opens his eyes as Sherlock’s head shifts to the side. The only things he can see are the soft wave of Sherlock’s curls against his temple, and the out of focus edge of his nose as Sherlock -  _Sherlock_  - deepens the kiss and pulls John closer to him. His hand curls into a fist at the small of John’s back, the fingers of his other hand squeeze around John’s wrist, and he makes a low needy sound that makes John’s entire body contract. He gasps and bites down involuntarily, nipping Sherlock’s lip.

Sherlock pulls back, just enough that the ends of their noses are still touching. “John?”

That’s all he ever says, when he’s confused, upset, lost. Just John’s name. As if all he needs to ground him is John telling him it’s okay. It’s always awoken a fierce possessiveness in John, and now is no different, despite the circumstances. 

“It’s okay, it’s okay. I’m sorry I bit you - didn’t mean to. But listen. Are you listening?”

“I’m listening, John.”

“Good, because you - because I -  _fuck_ , this is so hard. I love you so goddamned much, Sherlock.” He says fiercely, and folds Sherlock in his arms, pressing their bodies flush from shoulders to ankles. The words he’s been wanting to say to Sherlock for five years are an avalanche rumbling through him, deafening and unstoppable. Another hard kiss ends in a mumbled chorus of, “I love you, I love you, I love you.”

“Oh,  _John_.” 

Sherlock sounds wrecked and miserable, and John knows, he absolutely knows Sherlock’s going to say he shouldn’t have, he doesn’t feel the same, that he can’t, all the excuses and justifications John’s heard for five years are about to come spilling out, and their last moments on earth are going to be spent staring at each other like strangers. He takes a deep breath and prepares for it, rocks his head against Sherlock’s and drinks in the last seconds of this closeness he always wanted, even as dread at hearing Sherlock’s words floods through him. 

“I love you, too.” Sherlock murmurs, bringing a hand up tight around the back of John’s neck. His fingers dig into the hollow at the base of John’s skull, holding him there.

“You -  _what_?” The dread dissipates into relief so powerful it knocks the breath from his lungs, chest heaving so hard he can feel his each individual rib moving.  _Sherlock loves him._

Tears well up again, burning behind his eyelids. Sherlock loves him and they’re about to die. This is so goddamned unfair. 

Sherlock’s forehead rolls against his, their noses collide, and then Sherlock’s leaning into him, backing them up against the glass and metal partition at the end of the row of seats. Their knees and shoes bump, John trips and grabs at Sherlock’s arm to catch himself, while Sherlock continues to crowd unapologetically into his space.  

“You heard me.” Sherlock slants his mouth up to meet John’s, and the kiss is hungrier now, not so hesitant. 

John’s sob of miserable joy is muffled by Sherlock’s tongue pressing hot into his mouth. John shuts his eyes and loses himself in the wet slide of Sherlock’s tongue against his own, the gentle scape of his teeth pulling across John’s bottom lip, the catch of skin as the tips of their noses bump. Sherlock’s hands spread across his shoulder blades, curl around his biceps, tugging him endlessly closer. Sherlock’s mouth moves away from his own, down his jaw, pressing so hard into his jugular that his head goes light.

“Why didn’t you ever - “ Sherlock bites into his throat, the rest of his sentence muted by John’s skin between his teeth.  

John’s head falls back against the glass, forgetting for the moment that they’re about to die. Sherlock’s mouth is on him. Sherlock’s mouth that just uttered the words he’d never thought he would hear. Sherlock loves him. The entire world could explode right now, sod the damned train car. Nothing matters but this.

“Why didn’t  _you_?” John kisses at Sherlock’s temple, the only part of him he can reach, gets a mouthful of black curls. He laughs, because it’s all so tragically absurd. They can’t have more than a few seconds left now. 

“I never thought you wanted this - me - “ Sherlock’s mouth is everywhere at once, hot wet dragging tongue across John’s throat, his chin, dipping into his ear, gentle over the cut along his hairline.

The irony of this is just cruel. “I always did. God, fuck, I  _always_  did. You were my whole life - you  _are_  my whole life. Why would you think - I thought you didn't want - “

The end of his sentence is swallowed by Sherlock’s lips back on his, their hands on each other’s faces, Sherlock’s fingers in his hair. The touch of Sherlock’s body, the heat of his breath, it’s shredding him, pulling him into pieces. He feels stripped raw, as they cling to each other, sighing into each other’s open mouths, finally giving themselves over to what’s always been there right under the surface.      

“John.” Sherlock’s voice is muffled against John’s jacket.

“Yeah, Sherlock?” John can’t stop threading his fingers through Sherlock’s hair, trailing over his ears, touching every part of bare skin he can reach. 

“I have to tell you something.” Sherlock nips at John’s chin and pulls back, his eyes roiling with worry.

“What?” John thumbs over Sherlock’s lower lip, wet with their shared saliva.

“I - I - “ Sherlock bites into his lip and shifts his gaze away.

“What, Sherlock?” A heavy stone of dread settles in his stomach. Sherlock hesitating to speak never signals good things. Of course, how much worse can it really get?

“I - you must promise not to be angry.”

“Sherlock…” 

“I - I disarmed the bomb. We’re not - “

“You - what?!” There have been far too many conflicting emotions in the last five minutes. John’s stomach lurches and his vision fills with winking black spots. Overwhelmed, he clutches at Sherlock for support, and then remembers he’s angry with him. He drops his hands to his sides, clenching into fists, his fingernails slicing into his palms.

“I’m sorry I didn’t say something before, I just - “ Sherlock’s stammering, talking too quickly, as he does on the rare occasions his emotions get ahead of his brain. He reaches beseechingly toward John.

“You made me think - “ John pushes him back, his stomach clenching with anger and relief and something much darker and more complex. Something that’s making the corners of his mouth twitch with amusement, even though more than half of him wants nothing more than to knock Sherlock flat. “You made me think we were going to die. You  _cock_ , you complete and utter  _shit._ ”

“I know, I am. I’m so sorry, John.”

“You made me think we were going to die, Sherlock! How could you  _fuck_  with me like that, after all we’ve - I’ve - been through?! How could you do that to me?” John roars, tears suddenly streaming down his face, and he’s not even sure why. He wants to laugh and to cry and to punch something, all at once. He settles for punching one of the seat cushions, even though the sting of it across his knuckles isn’t nearly painful enough to be satisfying. “Jesus, what is  _wrong_  with you? Why would you do that?”         

“I just wanted you to hear you. Hear you forgive me, and I thought - if you thought - just for long enough - “ Sherlock drops his eyes to the floor, abashed in the face of John’s fury.

“I already told you - at the flat - I’m  _here_ , for fuck’s sake, doesn’t that show you I forgive you? God. I mean, Christ, Sherlock. Just when I think you can’t be much more of an arsehole, you always prove me wrong.” John stalks to the end of the train car, eyes sweeping over the bomb in the floor, and surely enough, the clock is stopped. Bastard.

“I’m sorry.” Sherlock’s voice is so diminutive, so ashamed, it makes John turn towards him. 

Sherlock’s neck is still pink from John’s mouth. His hair standing up in tangled bunches from John’s fingers. A shiver of possessiveness crawls across John’s shoulders and down his back. Sherlock’s the only person that’s ever stirred these emotions in him - complicated and aching and so marrow deep that he’ll never be free of him, even if he wanted to be. 

“I’m so fucking angry with you.” He doesn’t mean it, not really.  

“In my defence,” Sherlock clears his throat, clearly preparing for a Very Important Statement, and John can feel an actual smile creeping onto his face before he can stop it. “In my defence, I could hardly have anticipated that you would  _kiss_  me.” 

“No? That wasn’t one of your variables? Bit shortsighted of you. I'm disappointed.” John chews on the inside of his cheek, trying hard not to laugh. All his anger is being short circuited by the relief of knowing they’re not about to die, and more than a little bit by the charming display Sherlock’s putting on. 

“No.” Sherlock sounds shocked. “Why would I have expected you to kiss me? You’re engaged to be married, John.”

John snorts a laugh, searching for the guilt he certainly should be feeling about cheating on his girlfriend. He finds that guilt to be in startlingly short supply. “I’m not, actually. You interrupted that bit. Remember?”

“But...surely afterward…” Sherlock turns those verdant eyes on him, blinking owlishly.

“No, love.” The endearment slips out without him even realising he’s said it. “We never really, ah, got round to a redo. I’ve been a bit preoccupied since. Mostly with you.”

“Oh. And now?” Sherlock looks up at him almost shyly, reticence tightening across his beautiful beloved face. 

It’s incalculable how much John loves him, and now that it’s out there, exposed and real, it seems to be increasing by the second. Every kiss John’s ever wanted to drop onto those messy curls, every dreamt of soft slide of lips and unspoken promise is unraveling through him, spilling out through his neurons and his mouth and his fingers, making it hard to think rationally about anything but Sherlock. 

All he wants in the heaviness of Sherlock in his arms, that sweet mouth falling on his again. It feels dangerously simple, just this once, to take what he wants. To give both of them the solace in one another that they’ve denied themselves for so many years. Austerity does apparently have its limits.  

“Sherlock, I am not really as selfless a man as you think I am. I would never have kissed you, true, if I hadn’t thought it was the end. But not because I didn’t want to, and not because I’m so morally upstanding that I would never do that to Mary. I’ve only held myself back all this time because I thought  _you_  didn’t want  _me_.” John crosses to Sherlock, slides his arms round his slender waist. Sherlock’s arms drape over John’s shoulders like they’re meant to be there, which they are. “Now that I know you do. Well, it’s all changed, isn’t it, love?”

Sherlock gazes down at him with naked adoration, with wonder, his normally pouting mouth drawn up in a gentle smile. His fingertips are brushing the edges of John’s hairline, trilling down the nape of his neck into his collar. He doesn’t say anything at all as he folds forward, resting his cheek against the top of John’s head.

John strokes up and down his sides, lost in this new dimension of  _themness_. He feels like he’s had one too many at the pub, his head swimming, the rest of him pleasantly warm and slow. All at once, the phrase drunk in love makes complete sense. He’s never felt that before, this dulling of all his senses just because of the proximity of his object of affection, by their breath in his hair, the weight of their body resting against his. He’s had flashes of it with Sherlock before, but they’ve never had this - permission - and it’s exhilarating. 

“If you want to know the truth,” John brushes a lock of hair from Sherlock’s ear, traces the helix with his fingers. “Since you’ve been back, I’ve felt like I was cheating on  _you_  every time I get in bed with her. Just feels wrong to be somewhere you’re not. I miss your goddamned icy feet on me. I miss your awful sugary tea. I miss you bursting into the loo when I’m in the shower. I miss you shouting at the postman out the window to bring the mail up. I miss your laziness. I miss coming home and finding you upside down on the sofa for no reason. I miss you insulting my blog. I just miss _you,_  Sherlock.”

“Oh, John.” Sherlock whispers as if he’s in pain, and his arms slip off John’s shoulders to wrap firmly around his waist. “I had no idea. I thought - well, at first I thought you truly would never want to talk to me again. You were so angry.”

“Of course I was angry - still am, if you’d like the long and short of it. Probably will be for quite a while. You broke my heart, you prick. Tends to piss people off.” John nuzzles against Sherlock’s throat, his answering little rumble of contentment vibrating against John’s lips.

“I thought you hated me.” Sherlock pulls them closer together, though that hardly feels possible, and ducks his head down so he can press kisses along John’s cheek and over the curve of his orbital bone. “Though I realise now that was a fairly significant miscalculation.”

“You really are such a complete fucking idiot sometimes, Sherlock.”

“I know.” 

“So am I.”

“I know.” Sherlock pulls back from where he’s been kissing at John’s jawline, his smile slow and sultry, his eyelids half closed.   

The air between them is rife with promise, crackling with the energy of everything that had been repressed between them for so long. John’s head is thick and buzzy, spinning with the first threads of real arousal. Now that the fear of imminent death has been lifted, he’s finding himself rather preoccupied with the idea of getting back to Baker Street as quickly as possible and making up for lost time.

He can’t deal with the aftermath of this decision right now, he just doesn’t care. He’s sick to death of safe and right. It’s never gotten him anything but mediocrity. 

“Sherlock.”

“John.”

“I want to go home.” The intent is clear, as he trails his fingers down Sherlock’s long neck, leans forward to rub his lips along the length of his collarbone.

“To stay?” Sherlock’s voice is tremulous and thin. John can feel the faint shudder along his spine, the way he holds himself rigid. Waiting. Waiting for John to say  _No, just for today. I have to go back to her. I’m not gay. You’re not worth the rest of my life._

John is not a soft man. He’s spent his entire life being hardened by his experiences, and his emotional walls are high and fortified. He doesn’t gentle easily, isn’t given to grand displays of affection or sentimentality. Sherlock’s always been able to chip away at those walls in a way no one else ever has, though, and now he’s crumbled them entirely. He feels exposed and raw in all the right ways, as though his heart is beating outside of his body, there for Sherlock to take and hold and make a mess of. 

“Yes, sweetheart. To stay.” John brushes his knuckles soft across Sherlock’s cheekbone, and Sherlock’s relieved sob nearly undoes him entirely.

Then Sherlock’s mouth finds his again, and the world around them dissolves.

John doesn’t even notice the flashlights coming down the track, the voices shouting to each other in the dark.

“Jesus Christ!”

John and Sherlock break apart as though they’ve been electrocuted. John's lips are tingling as he turns to see Greg Lestrade, Sally Donovan, and half of London bomb disposal. Greg is staring at him, hands on hips, his cheeks blushed with a bit of second hand embarrassment, but his eyes are sparkling. He raises his eyebrows at John and John just shrugs. Greg tosses his head back and laughs. 

“You called the police.” John croaks out, turning to look at Sherlock, who looks entirely unruffled, brazenly tilting his chin up to display the purpling bruise John just left under his jaw. 

“Of course I called the police, John. I’m not  _monumentally_  stupid.” Sherlock sniffs haughtily, though the effect is somewhat counteracted by his hand resting warmly in the small of John’s back. “Though, as usual, it was unnecessary. I’ve already disarmed the bomb, Lestrade.”

“Ah. Well then.” Greg turns and grins at Sally, who’s standing with her arms crossed, though even her mouth is ticked up at the corners. “I guess we’ll just let the bomb boys do their clean up work dismantling and such. I think you two can, um, go home.”

John nods at Greg as he threads his fingers through Sherlock’s. “Ta, Greg.”

“My office tomorrow morning though. Nine sharp. I mean it.”

“Yes, sir.”

Something giddy has burst open in John’s chest as he salutes Greg and hops out of the train car, dragging Sherlock out behind him. He feels sixteen, immortal and omnipotent.

“You’re just going to let them leave?” Sally’s indignant voice floats out the open door.

Greg clears his throat, “They’re not going to be any good today. Just. Let them have their - just let them alone, alright? It’s been five years coming, Sally. Give them a few hours.” 

John’s grin is so wide his cheeks hurt as their shoes crunch along the gravel. They pick their way back out of the tunnel and this time it doesn’t sound sinister like it did on the way in. It sounds like shells on the beach. It sounds like summertime and breezes blowing the curtains in the sitting room at Baker Street and Sherlock draped over his leather chair like a wilted lettuce leaf complaining about the heat. It sounds like a future John never thought he would have. 

When they emerge onto the street, John doesn’t hesitate as he spins Sherlock into his arms and kisses him in the wavering golden light of a streetlamp.                

***

The ride home in the cab is an exercise in self control, for both of them. They don’t dare to even make eye contact. The space between their bodies throbs with tangible need, the heat and want they’ve never allowed themselves to feel now unleashed. It feels dangerous. When the cab slows to a stop in front of Baker Street, John’s stomach lurches with the reality of what’s about to happen. 

They’re both silent as Sherlock opens the door, perhaps both overwhelmed with everything that’s happened today. Sherlock’s back is to John as he hangs his coat on the rack beside the door. He looks stiff, the line of his shoulders tight. 

“Hey, Sherlock, you alright?” John puts a questioning hand against his back.

Before he can react, Sherlock whirls and backs him up against the stairway wall, capturing his mouth in a ravenous kiss. John arches up into it, twining his hand into Sherlock’s hair, and they’re biting at each other’s mouths, the tension from the cab ride breaking over them in this brutal crush of teeth and tongues. Sherlock yanks John’s jacket over his shoulders, pinning his arms to his sides for just long enough for John to register that he rather likes his arms restrained while Sherlock’s licking frantically at his throat, and then Sherlock shuffles back and pulls and the jacket crumples to the floor at their feet.

Sherlock’s back on him before he can move, biting at his earlobe, panting against his throat. John skids his hands down Sherlock’s stomach, muscles heaving under his palms as he pushes Sherlock gently. 

“Mrs Hudson - “ John gasps out.

“Shit, yes, let’s - “ Sherlock pulls at John’s bottom lip like he can’t bear to stop kissing long enough to climb the stairs, and then rocks his forehead against John’s like they had in the train car. “I want you so badly. I can’t think.”

“I know, sweetheart, I know. Me too.” John smoothes his hand over Sherlock’s quivering back, settling him. It’s natural for him to take the lead between them in everything but The Work, and it seems sex is going to be no different. “Come on.”

John pulls a pliant Sherlock up the steps to 221B, and they fall against each other in the hallway, hands tugging at shirt hems, fumbling at reluctant shirt buttons, the desperation between them sublimely beautiful. John’s body is amorphous, melding into Sherlock’s, sinking into his skin, filling the spaces between his bones. He can’t tell whose fingers are undoing his belt, shimmying his jeans over his hips. He can feel Sherlock’s heart beating in his own chest.

They can’t get close enough. It's about wanting to devour each other with teeth and lips and hands, wanting to rip each other's skin apart and climb inside. John’s never been so breathless with want in his entire life - he wants to become Sherlock, wants their bodies to fuse to one another so they can’t ever be parted.  

Sherlock’s sucking gently on the tendon in John’s neck, and it’s not even close to hard enough. “You can - harder. You can, if you want.”

“What?” Sherlock pulls back, blinking at John with wet dark eyes, his mouth kiss swollen and red at the edges.

“Leave a mark. You can. I want you to. God, you’re so fucking gorgeous. You have no idea what you look like right now.” John drags a finger over those puffy lips, and they’re burning hot. Hot from John’s teeth sinking into them, from his tongue lapping at them.

“What do I look like, John?” Sherlock lowers his lashes, sucks his bottom lip between his teeth, knowing precisely what he looks like.

“You look - “ John pulls Sherlock down until their mouths are touching again, pulling that lip out of Sherlock’s mouth and into his own. Sherlock groans into his mouth, his hips jerking against John’s stomach. “You look like you’re  _mine_. I’m all over you. You  _smell_  like me.”

“Oh god, yes, yes, John,” Sherlock sounds on the edge of crying, his voice reedy and strangled, as he hooks three long fingers over the waist of John’s jeans and yanks them awkwardly down to his mid thigh. "I'm yours."

“Oh Christ, Sherlock,” John reaches between them, presses a palm against the hardness that’s been rocking heatedly against his stomach. The thought that he’s touching Sherlock like this, after so many years of waiting and wanting, is dizzying.

The way they touch each other is both brutal and gentle, long scrapes of fingernails on bare skin, urgent soft kisses along stubbly jaws, John pushing both of Sherlock’s hands above his head as Sherlock moans and whines and cants his hips desperately against John’s thigh, and it’s still not enough. It’s not enough when Sherlock dips exploring fingers inside John’s pants and pulls his cock out with a gasp that sounds like wonder and John bites into the end of his tongue. It’s not enough when Sherlock spins them so John’s the one against the wall, and slams into him so hard he can’t breathe for a moment, and begs hoarsely, “I want to,  _please_ ,” and John says, “Yes, yes, I want you to,” and Sherlock bites at his throat and his collarbones and marks him with his teeth and his noises and John knows he never wants to hear another person gasping against him like this. Only Sherlock. Always Sherlock.  

It's savage and filthy and wet and when Sherlock wraps a hand around them both, the angle is awkward, nearly on the edge of painful, but it's not about feeling good, not like that. It's need, aching, repressed, searingly desperate possessive need. John wants his come and his saliva and his skin cells all over Sherlock, Sherlock’s all over him - their DNA mingling, becoming each other. He wants Sherlock under his skin and in his bloodstream. It’s hunger like he’s never felt before. 

Sherlock's teeth nick into John's lip and his head bangs hard into the wall as they press and grind relentlessly, their cocks sliding roughly against each other. “Wait, wait, baby, give me your hand,” John shudders out, his entire body shivering against Sherlock’s. He can’t tell which one of them is closer to coming, they feel so much like the same person. Sherlock holds up his hand, and John shuts his eyes, nuzzles into the muskiness of his palm, which smells like both of them. It’s intoxicating. When he darts out his tongue to wet Sherlock’s skin, Sherlock’s whimpering gasp shakes him to his core. He licks and licks, pulling saliva from the back of his mouth, from the corners of his cheeks, to lave it all over Sherlock’s hand so he can jerk them off without friction.

Sherlock pulls his hand from John’s grasp, murmuring, “That’s enough, John, that’s - I just want to, to touch you, please,” and curls his wet palm around them again. His touch is the most incredible thing John’s ever felt. No lover has  _ever_  touched him like this before, no man, no woman, only Sherlock. It feels like worship, the way Sherlock’s eyes are so wide open, watching him, cataloguing every twitch of pleasure in his face.

“Yeah, come on, Sherlock, let it go,” John whispers, surging forward to press their mouths together while twisting his fingers in between Sherlock’s, wet and sticky with precome and John’s spit. He thumbs in figure eights over the slippery heads of both their cocks, and Sherlock sucks in a sharp breath and holds it. His entire body quakes once and he whines high pitched into John’s open mouth and arches his hips up and comes between their entwined fingers, warm and thick. 

“Oh, Jesus, Sherlock, look at you, look at you, Christ,” John babbles heedlessly, not even knowing what he’s saying, mesmerised by Sherlock’s blushing straining face, his long black lashes fluttering against his cheeks, those full lips swollen and parted as his cock pulses twice more and he shivers forward, collapsing against John with a whimper.

The sight of that beautiful face lost in pleasure pushes John past his breaking point, and his orgasm spirals suddenly down his spine, bright and intense. He shakes silently as he spills hot all over their hastily pulled down trousers, their mingled semen sliding in viscous rivulets down their pressed together thighs. Sherlock slows his hand, uncoils his fingers and grips John’s hipbone instead. Coming doesn't abate any of their frantic need. Barely a second passes before John's biting anew at Sherlock's neck, and Sherlock's gasping, pawing at John's back and writhing, pulling John’s face against his in a vicious kiss. 

“I want more - “ Sherlock’s sticky hands slip up under John’s shirt, bold and possessive.

“You have me, god, Sherlock, you have every part of me. Whatever you want,” John grabs his hands from under his shirt, kisses at bony wrists, at the drying come on his knuckles, feeling like he could pass out in the hallway, every limb weak and wobbling even as his belly floods with a new wave of arousal. “I want you underneath me. Please, please, god, so long - waited - so long - ”

Somehow they stumble to the bedroom, kicking off their trousers in the doorway and collapsing on the bed with shirts half unbuttoned and their hands already in each other’s hair, kissing before they remember that they weren’t for a moment. John already can’t remember what came before this. Was there life before Sherlock was in his arms, breathless and half hard, thrashing and sighing and wrapping his bare legs around John’s back?

Stubble scrapes up his neck, Sherlock’s surprisingly soft little noises in his ear. He can feel every hair on Sherlock’s thighs as they tighten around his waist. Sherlock’s hot between his legs, growing harder against John’s stomach as John bends over him and puts his mouth everywhere he can reach - bare skin, hair, shirt buttons pressing circles against his tongue.

They still have their socks on. 

John slithers down, down, mouth rubbing over Sherlock’s ribs, wetting the trail of sparse hairs below his navel. Sherlock jerks and tenses when John’s intent becomes clear. He looks up at Sherlock, rucked up wrinkled shirt crooked over his nipples, his face crimson against the light blue cotton. 

“Alright?”

Sherlock nods, mouth open. He looks wrecked and needy, his eyes as rough as a storm tossed sky.

“Tell me if you don’t like it, and I'll stop." John passes a hand soothingly over Sherlock’s hip and over his thigh, kisses his belly. Sherlock’s hand presses into John’s hair, assenting, encouraging. That seems enough permission, since Sherlock’s voice is apparently lost somewhere in the scant space between them.

John slides down lower, kisses everywhere but his cock, kisses protruding hipbones, the hollow sweep of soft skin above them, swirls the tip of his tongue through dark curls and licks at the salty skin beneath. Sherlock is still as a statue, his only movements the rhythmic contraction of his stomach muscles and the occasional twitch of his cock against John’s cheek. 

“You don’t have to be still, love. I won’t bite you, I promise.” 

Their eyes meet, and Sherlock breaks into a ragged laugh. He folds his arms behind his head, as if he’s about to take a nap, and shifts his hips under John’s chest. “Sorry. I just. This is - I haven’t really - much - and I never thought it would be you and me and I just - sometimes I forget how to breathe when I get - “

“I know. I know, Sherlock. It’s okay. Just relax. It’s just me.”  John hooks two fingers around him and moves just enough to make Sherlock’s breath catch. “Just me and you. Who knows you better than I do?”

“No one,” Sherlock husks out, shoulders heaving as his head tips back into his hands. He tugs at his own hair. 

“No one.” John whispers, “Only me.”

"Always you," Sherlock chokes, voice breaking.

John covers his own surging emotions by closing his mouth over the head of Sherlock's cock and shutting his eyes. He can feel Sherlock's back arching, feel his hip flexors tensing, as John takes more of him in.

Sherlock’s groan as John swallows him down for the first time is bone shakingly loud, resonating through Sherlock into John, spreading goosebumps across his skin as Sherlock’s skin slides velvet hot against his tongue. 

“Oh my god, John, oh my god,” Sherlock thumps his head against the bed and curls one long leg over John’s bad shoulder. 

John can tell he’s being careful, even in the throes of arousal, can tell he’s not putting weight directly on John’s scar. He can’t even see it - John’s still wearing his shirt - and he somehow knows exactly where he shouldn’t rest his leg. No one’s ever been careful with him - he’s always the strong one, tough and solid and unbreakable. Sherlock is being careful with him. He blinks back the heat prickling behind his eyes and focuses on licking a hard stripe up the underside of Sherlock’s cock, which makes Sherlock arc up off the bed and scrabble at the headboard. John pulls off with an obscene slurp and nuzzles at him, kisses the crease of his groin.

“You can.” He licks a circle around the head, nudges the foreskin back with the tip of his tongue. “Come in my mouth. You can.”

“Oh.” Sherlock can’t seem to manage more than that, so John just takes him back in his mouth, and sucks and sucks and licks and thinks how many times he wanted to take Sherlock apart like this and now that he is, it’s overwhelming and familiar all at the same time because it’s Sherlock, and nothing about Sherlock could ever be unfamiliar. Sherlock is  _home_  and  _right_  and everything that makes John feel like the world’s not awful.

John’s so lost in his own thoughts that when Sherlock suddenly pushes his hips up and tightens and whispers “Oh,  _fuck_ ,” he’s totally unprepared for the thick bitterness spreading fast across his palate. He chokes a little and pulls off as the second pulse sprays over his lips, and he remembers immediately the wicked satisfaction of having someone’s come smeared across his mouth. That it’s Sherlock,  _his_  Sherlock, makes it all that much better. 

“Christ,” he mumbles, lips sticking together, as he raises his head and watches Sherlock shake and shake and rub his hands frantically all over his own face and chest. John slides up his body and pushes, presses their hollows and swells together, fits shoulder against neck, hip into belly. John’s convinced no two people have ever fit together this perfectly. Their bodies are made to lie together like this, made to be entangled in sweaty sheets, made to curl into each other on cold nights under blankets, John’s nose in Sherlock’s neck.

“John.” Sherlock breathes out, and twists, turns so he can brush his fingers against John’s renewed erection.

“Sherlock.” 

They fall into each other, mouths and hands and Sherlock half on top of John with a bent knee pressing John’s thigh into the mattress. Sherlock’s hot, so hot, sweaty and flushed, a sliver of mottled pink chest visible in the vee of his shirt collar. John kisses at the side of his mouth and tucks his damp hair behind his ears with shaking fingers. 

“I love you,” John gasps, his hips lifting off the mattress as his head spins, his nerve endings drowning in endorphins. His blood feels as slow and thick as treacle, even as his second orgasm in less than an hour gathers tight and sharp at the base of his spine.

“You taste like me,” Sherlock whispers against John’s mouth, sounding awed.

John turns his face tight into the crook of Sherlock’s shoulder as the tension in his belly breaks into a shower of sparks and he’s coming again, pressed close against Sherlock’s chest. Sherlock kisses his hair, rubs his hand up under John’s shirt and makes little humming noises as John’s limbs go weak and leaden. Sherlock’s fingers tip John’s chin up, and their mouths meet. John knows he’s kissing terribly, sloppy and loose lipped, but it hardly matters. They just need to be touching.

They kiss languidly for a few minutes, and then Sherlock rolls to his side and collapses with a grunt. They don’t bother to clean up. Don’t bother to take off their ruined shirts. John feels like he could pass out - not fall asleep, but actually just lose consciousness. He seems to be dissolving, melting into the mattress, seeping into the cracks in the floorboards. His bones have turned into jelly. 

John somehow manages to turn his head slowly to look over at Sherlock, his chest heaving, red lines from John's fingernails striated across his pale skin, little half moons from where he'd dug in and held on for dear life, tooth marks and bruises welling up on his neck and his arms. There's come dried across his stomach, his hair is a riot of tangles with pulled out strands laying curved against the hollows of his throat. He looks like a crime scene. 

"Sherlock..." He sighs, letting a hand drift over to knuckle over Sherlock's protruding ribs.

"John." Sherlock turns his head, kiss-bruised mouth turned up at the corners, his eyes softer than John's ever seen them. 

Quicker than John can process what's happening, Sherlock's rolled on top of him, caging him under his larger frame. John burrows into the bed, rolling his neck, the quiet intimacy of this moment even more intoxicatingly loving than what came before. Sherlock's soft cock, still wet and hot from their multiple rounds of lovemaking, brushes against John's lower belly. He bends his knees, brackets Sherlock's hips, hands automatically roaming up under Sherlock’s shirt, running warm across that expanse of marked skin, over his still peaked nipples, playing with his feathering of chest hair. 

Sherlock unbuttons John’s shirt, spreads it apart with two fingers. 

“Bit late for that, isn’t it, love?” John sounds drunk, his words slurred, his throat dry.

“No. I want to look at you.” Sherlock says unabashedly, as open and innocent as it’s possible to sound after having some incredibly quick and dirty sex. Twice.

Sherlock's head dips into John's neck, lips dragging so lightly along the swell of his shoulder, up to tug at his earlobe, down to mouth at his scar. He's exploring, tasting. John can hear his loud inhalations, feel it as the tip of Sherlock's nose rubs gentle circles in his skin.

John lets his muscles relax, sinking both towards Sherlock and down into the mattress. His eyes close, shutting out the enticing visual of the dark hair tickling down his body, the birdlike shoulder blades sticking up sharp behind. 

“Sherlock, I can’t. I can’t possibly again, not for hours.” John laughs, as Sherlock noses into his armpit. “Christ, you’re like a sniffer dog.”

“Shut up. I like how you smell. I’ve always - always wanted to do that.” Sherlock lays down beside him again, but turned on his side with an arm thrown across John’s stomach. “Don’t leave.”

“I’m not leaving. I can barely  _move_ , Sherlock.” John smiles, shifts and rolls so he can tuck his knee between Sherlock’s thighs and nibbles at Sherlock’s lower lip. Sherlock sighs and sinks into him, his hand petting gently between John’s shoulder blades. 

“Don’t leave ever.” 

“Well. I do eventually have to explain everything to Mary - “

“I don’t want to hear her name in our bed.” Sherlock says fiercely, his fingers stopping their lazy stroking.

“Shhh, okay, sweetheart. I’m sorry, sorry,” John wriggles closer, now more than half asleep.

“I like that.  _Sweetheart_. I like that, keep saying that.” His hand resumes its path over John’s spine.

John thinks he answers, but he just hums and everything goes fuzzy round the edges. 

Slowly, he becomes aware of being watched. He thinks maybe he’s been asleep. He drags his eyelids open to find Sherlock’s face inches from his own, his head propped up on his bent arm. His eyes haven’t lost that softness they had when they were having sex. Maybe Sherlock’s just going to look like that from now on. That would be lovely.

“Hey you.” 

“Hey.” Sherlock smiles, the outline of his mouth still rubbed pink from John’s stubble.

“You okay? With - everything?” John turns so they’re facing each other, trails a hand over the pale curve where Sherlock’s ribs end. “You took your shirt off.”

“It was - “Sherlock’s nose wrinkles up in that way that makes John’s stomach flip over.

“Yeah, it’s fine, Sherlock.” John has to kiss him again. Their lips slot together perfectly, kiss raw and sore. John traces the inner rim of Sherlock’s lips with the tip of his tongue, tightens his fingers to grip the soft skin at Sherlock’s waist. “So, you’re okay, right?”

“I’ve never been more so, John.” Sherlock rubs their noses together and slides down, nestles against John’s chest and wraps his arms around him. 

“Good. Me too.” John clears his throat and runs his hand slow and steady over the bumps of Sherlock’s rib cage, over the swell of that ridiculously lush and perfect arse. “I thought about this all the time, you know. Me and you. Like this.”

“I didn’t.”

“Thanks.”

“No, no, that’s not what I meant,” Sherlock says, alarmed, and pushes up off John’s chest to look at him. “I just - I didn’t know _what_ I wanted. I just wanted more of you, all the time. It was never enough. You had girlfriends and I hated them, because they had more of you. But I felt the same way about Harry, about your patients. They had some part of you I didn’t, and I wanted it. I needed - shit, I’m not making sense.”

“No, yes, you are. That’s what this is - it’s every part of each other.” John tucks a stray curl behind Sherlock’s ear, kisses his cheek. “That’s all. It’s not complicated.”

Sherlock considers that, his head tilting to the left the way it always does when he’s thinking. His eyes roam over John’s face, curious and sparkling. 

“What, love?”

“I don’t understand what makes me want this with  _you_ , and not with someone else.”

“Oh, it’s just - chemistry, love, two people who fit. You’re my best friend, but that’s not - I’ve had best friends before, but not like this. You can’t explain the chemical processes of love, Sherlock. It just  _is._ ”

Sherlock freezes, arches his neck, blinks. “I’m your best friend?”

John laughs, because of course Sherlock wouldn’t even understand that he’s his best friend. Only Sherlock would be surprised by that after they’ve had their hands and mouths all over each other, after John’s said he loves him. After John’s said he’s leaving his girlfriend, because he’d leave anyone or anything for Sherlock, he’d give up his life for Sherlock - has agreed to, more than once - and Sherlock still doesn’t know they’re best friends. 

“Of course, Sherlock. Of  _course_  you’re my best friend. You silly sod.” John puts his hands on Sherlock’s biceps, flips them over so Sherlock’s flat on his back, and crawls on top of him, straddles his hips. Neither of them is hard - he doesn’t care. There’s something heartbreakingly intimate and trusting about their soft cocks pressed together. He finally pulls his open shirt off, throws it across the bedroom, and they’re completely bared to each other. 

“I thought - Mike.” 

“Nope. You.” John leans down, drags his mouth gently along Sherlock’s throat. Sherlock’s arms close around his back automatically. 

“Or Greg.” Sherlock hitches his hips, and John can hear the grin in his voice.

“Not even close. It's you, you absolute moron. How could you ever think it was anyone else?” John runs a thumb down the side of Sherlock’s face, over one of those cheekbones that kept him up at night, and thinks maybe he could, again, because somehow his body seems to know how long they’ve been waiting for this.

“I don’t know. I’ve never - I’ve never been anyone’s best friend.”

“Yes, you have. You’re mine.” John drops a hand to Sherlock’s hip, the muscles undulating under his palm as Sherlock rolls up to meet him.

“Even now?” Sherlock asks, trying to sound playful, and only succeeding in sounding achingly eager.

“Yes,  _especially_  now. You’re my best friend, partner, everything. You’re everything to me, Sherlock.”

“I’m glad I tricked you in the train car. This wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t.” Sherlock cocks one eyebrow and grins crookedly.

“You’re still an arse, though.” John grins back and kisses Sherlock until he stops trying to talk.

It’s hopelessly uncoordinated, as John slides his knees alongside Sherlock’s hips and Sherlock pulls at John’s shoulders and they try to kiss and grind against each other at the same time, which isn’t really possible even if they were the same height. Eventually John settles for sitting up and running his hands all over Sherlock’s chest while Sherlock licks at his own lips and looks longingly at John’s. John flattens one palm against Sherlock’s taut stomach to brace himself and licks the other to wet it, rubs it over the shiny wet heads of their cocks.

“We’re going to have to go shopping,” He grunts, working them both up and back, precome and saliva not slick enough to stop his hand from catching dry a giant their skin.

“What?” Sherlock rolls his head, grabs at a pillow and chews into his bottom lip.

“Lube, fuck, we need, slick, Sherlock - this is - “ John takes his hand off, spits into his palm. “This is like my bedroom after school when I was fifteen.”

Sherlock grips John’s thighs, guides him to thrust harder, faster.“You did this - with other boys - when you were fifteen?”

John can barely breathe, his entire body is hot and shivering, looking down at their cocks pressed together, flushed maroon sliding between his pale fingers. No, god, he’s never done this with anyone, he’s never felt this until he looked up in that lab and saw those shining verdigris eyes boring into him and he knew he’d never be the same again. He’s never had sex that feels like he’s flying, free falling through space, clutching the other person to him just so he doesn’t crash. He’s never done anything like love Sherlock Holmes before - there’s no comparison to peeling back every layer of himself until he’s seething and raw and exposed, letting another person hold every broken wrong piece of him until they don’t feel wrong anymore. He’s never been owned before, owned someone else. God no, he’s never done  _this_  with anyone.

“Sort of,” he pants, because he really can’t find the words to say even half of that. “I’ll tell you about it later, okay? I'm a bit - occupied at the mo -"

“Okay,” Sherlock’s fingers dig hard into John’s hips, the muscles in his arms ropey and straining as he pulls John back and forth. “Oh, god, I’m - “

“Yeah, yeah, Sherlock, come on, that’s it,” John wants to fall over him, kiss him breathless, suck his tongue into his mouth, but he can’t make him come in that position. He loosens his grip, allows Sherlock to pump his hips up, frenetic and uneven. 

As soon as Sherlock curls up and then thumps back hard onto the bed, crying out with a throaty moan and spurting creamy white translucent between John’s fingers, John gives in to his need for as many points of their bodies as possible to be touching. He presses down so they're chest to chest, slips his legs on either side of Sherlock's trembling ones, nuzzling animalistically at Sherlock’s neck and rutting against his hip. Sherlock turns his head, mouths wet across John’s forehead and clamps a possessive hand hard on John’s right arse cheek.

“Oh, god, Sherlock, oh - “ John’s mumbling words dissolve into a choked cry as he comes between their nearly conjoined skin, the white hot electricity that races up his spine licking shiveringly through his nerve endings as he buries his face in Sherlock’s sweaty neck and tries not to pass out. His head is spinning. 

They lay there entwined, panting against each other, until John’s head clears enough to register how absolutely disgusting they both are. 

“There is no way in hell I can do that again today, Sherlock. I will actually die.”

“Well, still an improvement over exploding under Parliament, yes?”

“You got me there. Still. I’d like to perhaps revisit this tomorrow. And the day after that. And pretty much every day for the rest of my life.” John brushes his mouth over the end of Sherlock’s nose. “So, let’s try to live through tonight, yeah?”

“Agreed.” Sherlock squeezes him tightly and John can feel the weight of everything they still haven’t said, but it’s alright now, because they have time to say them.

“It’s _okay,_  Sherlock.”

Sherlock doesn’t question why he said that, just rubs his hands all over John’s back and kisses him so deeply John can feel it in his toes. 

“Okay, okay, sweetheart. Let’s - I would really like a shower.” John pulls back, laughing, and begins climbing backwards off the bed. 

“Together?” Sherlock lets John pull him up to standing.

“Every day. From now on. I want to start every morning with your wet hair in my face and your damned cold feet slipping all over mine. Sound good to you?” John's heart is full to bursting with the kinds of emotions he's spent years trying to submerge - exuberance, giddiness, joy, lust. He thought he'd have to settle for a beige existence, his moments with Sherlock the only all too brief flashes of colour. Knowing he's going to have this kind of love in his life all the time, this soul deep connection, this wall shaking sex, and everything in between - it's almost too much to fathom.

“Sounds glorious.”

 ***

John can hear the low rumble of Sherlock on the phone ordering takeaway, as he’s knotting the cotton ties of a pair of Sherlock’s soft pyjama bottoms around his waist. They’re far too long. John doesn’t care. He yanks the tee shirt Sherlock gave him over his wet hair, and pads out to the sitting room. Sherlock’s curled on the couch with his dressing gown wrapped around his legs, long feet crossed over each other. He tosses his phone on the side table.

"Forty minutes."

"I'll be eating wallpaper by then," John grins.

It could be any other night at Baker Street. It’s almost as though nothing’s changed. Except when John sinks beside him on the sofa, Sherlock draws them together and murmurs "I love you," soft and deep against his ear. John answers with a lingering kiss, an arm tucked up the back of Sherlock's tee shirt, where his bare skin is still warm from the shower. They kiss and kiss, kiss until the doorbell rings and Sherlock murmurs something about food.

They eat Indian food with their fingers, bits of naan and samosa crumbs spread across the coffee table, and share spicy chai tea in front of the fireplace. John forgets to call Mary and they fall asleep practically on top of each other in bed and wake up the same way, Sherlock breathing sleep sour into John’s mouth. John pulls Sherlock down and Sherlock pushes up, up, up, close and hard, his belly shivering, and they ruin their pyjamas and have to take another shower. John can't stop smiling. 

They hold hands when they walk into Speedy's to get takeaway coffees, John in a pair of thrice turned up jeans of Sherlock's and a too long button down. The owner, who's known them forever, looks at their fingers laced together and smiles and gives them their coffee for nothing.

They’re absurdly late to Scotland Yard. They don't care. Their eyes meet over their entwined hands on the cab bench, and they silently watch one another sip their coffees. It feels like the first day they've been reunited, the first real day since Sherlock came home, and nothing else matters but this.

 


End file.
